LECTURE 12 - Politics & Power

Power

The ability to create change through action or influence. It exists in all human relationships, whether violent or nonviolent.

What is politics in anthropology?

The mobilization of people’s beliefs into collective action.

What did political anthropology focus on after World War II?

It focused on creating typologies, or categories, of political systems.

Who proposed the four-part political typology in 1962?

Elman Service.

What were Elman Service’s four political systems?

Bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states.

Band

A small kinship-based group of foragers who hunt and gather in a particular territory.

What are characteristics of bands?

They are decentralized and have very little inequality in wealth or power.

According to Christopher Boehm, what did egalitarian band societies encourage?

Cooperation among humans.

What is a tribe in evolutionary anthropology?

A culturally distinct multiband population that believed they descended from a common ancestor.

When did tribes emerge?

Around 10,000–12,000 years ago during the shift to pastoralism and horticulture

How much power did tribal leaders usually have?

Limited power because tribes were relatively egalitarian.

How did settler colonial states affect tribes and Indigenous peoples?

They attempted to eliminate or assimilate them to gain labor and resources.

Chiefdom

An autonomous political unit made up of villages or communities ruled by a paramount chief.

What makes chiefdoms unique in Service’s typology?

Leadership is centralized under one authority figure.

How was chiefly authority maintained in Polynesia?

Through rituals, festivals, and hereditary leadership.

Why are Service’s typologies criticized?

They oversimplify political systems and ignore historical complexity and globalization.

State

An autonomous regional structure with political, economic, and military authority that can make laws and use force.

Anthropologists connect the rise of states to what development?

Agriculture and permanent settlements.

Which early civilizations are linked to the rise of states?

Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Japan, and the Indus Valley.

What are characteristics of the modern Western-style state?

Standing armies, borders, regulation, and competition with other states.

Why do anthropologists see states as fluid and fragile?

Because they are constantly reshaped through politics and everyday interactions.

According to anthropologists, how do people experience the state?

Through policing, taxes, and social services.

What did Max Weber argue was the defining feature of the state?

A monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

Hegemony

The ability of a dominant group to gain consent without direct force.

What institutions reinforce hegemony?

Schools, religion, media, nationalist holidays, and music.

How does globalization challenge state sovereignty?

By making borders more porous through migration and global connections.

Neoliberal Policies

Policies supporting free trade and reduced government control over markets.

Which organizations promote neoliberal policies?

The World Bank, IMF, and WTO.

Civil society organization

A local NGO that challenges state policies and advocates for community needs.

How do civil society organizations gain global influence?

By forming transnational networks using the internet and social media.

What debate exists about human violence?

Whether violence is biologically natural or socially learned.

What did Frans de Waal discover in primates?

Primates often reconcile after conflict, showing natural tendencies toward cooperation.

What do researchers say about aggression in humans and primates?

Aggression has genetic components, but so do cooperation and reconciliation.

How do political anthropologists study war?

As something culturally invented, learned, and normalized.

How is modern warfare different from earlier warfare?

It relies on advanced technology like missiles, satellites, drones, and computers.

Militarization

The social process through which society organizes for military violence.

According to Catherine Lutz, what does militarization include?

The glorification of war and the shaping of institutions around military goals. SHe wrote Homefront (2001)

Military-industrial complex

The expanding network of industries and institutions that normalize and support war.

What happened during the Sierra Leone civil war (1991–2002)?

50,000 deaths, 2 million refugees, and 10,000 child soldiers.

What did Susan Shepler argue about child soldier reintegration programs?

They ignored Sierra Leonean ideas about childhood and children’s economic roles.

What did Carolyn Nordstrom study in Mozambique?

How civilians resisted violence during civil war.

How did civilians in Mozambique resist war according to Nordstrom?

By sharing food, teaching children, and rebuilding communities.

What idea did Nordstrom challenge?

Thomas Hobbes’s belief that humans are naturally violent.

What did Nordstrom later discover about war?

Local wars are connected to global business and financial networks.

Agency

The ability of individuals or groups to challenge power structures and cultural norms.

What forms can agency take?

Everyday resistance, social movements, and religious or nonstate institutions.

Social movement

Collective action aimed at transforming cultural patterns and government policies.

How does globalization affect social movements?

It improves communication and cooperation across borders.

What role did freedom songs play in South African movements?

They strengthened collective identity and resistance against apartheid.

Framing process

Creating shared meanings that motivate collective action.

What did Jeffrey Juris argue about modern social movements?

They depend on both online and physical activism.

What did Yarimar Bonilla and Jonathan Rosa study?

How social media and physical protests worked together in movements like Black Lives Matter.

Who studied Islamic Fatwa Councils in Cairo?

Hussein Ali Agrama.

What did Agrama compare?

Egyptian government courts and the Al Azhar Fatwa Council.

Who was Hussein Ali Agrama and what did he discover?

Compared Egyptian personal status courts with the Al Azhar Fatwa Council and found that many people trusted nonbinding fatwas more than official court rulings.

Who was Maria Ovsyannikova and why is she important in the lecture?

Maria Ovsyannikova was a Russian journalist who protested Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on live television, showing how individuals can resist state power and propaganda.

What was Thomas Hobbes’s idea about humans?

Hobbes believed humans are naturally violent, an idea challenged by Carolyn Nordstrom’s research showing cooperation during war.

Who was Christopher Boehm and what did he argue?

Christopher Boehm was an evolutionary biologist who argued that egalitarianism in band societies helped shape human cooperation.